Why?
One day, the eighteenth-century Polish rabbi Baal Shem-Tov and his
students were standing on a hill when foreign troops invaded their town. From
their vantage point on the hill, they were able to see all the horror and
violence of the attack. The rabbi looked up to Heaven and cried out, "Oh,
if only I were God."
A student asked, "But, Master, if you were God, what would you do
differently?"
The rabbi answered him, "If I were God, I would do nothing
differently. If I were God, I would understand."[1]
In today’s gospel reading,[2] many
in the crowd that had gathered to hear Jesus were galvanized by news of a
recent tragedy: Pilate's soldiers had killed some Galilean Jews while they were
offering sacrifices in the Temple. Why would God allow this? Similarly, why had
the tower of Siloam collapsed and killed eighteen people? Why did God allow
that to happen?
Our questions echo the crowd’s questions. Why did God allow two Boeing
737 Max 8 planes to crash, killing all aboard? Why did God allow the slaughter
of fifty worshipers in two New Zealand mosques? Why an unending war in Afghanistan?
Why cancer? Why any tragedy?
The day had been long and the sun hot. Moses was dusty, thirsty and
tired. All day his only companions had been the bleating, cantankerous sheep of
his father-in-law, Jethro. He had led the flock from the wilderness to the
mountain called Horeb, that is, desert. It was an arid place, of parched ground
and few shrubs. His father-in-law said that it was the mountain of God, but
Moses simply hoped to find better grazing for the flock and perhaps a spring.
That was when he smelled it: the aromatic smoke of the cassia; incense
like he had smelled in the temples of Egypt; incense like his father-in-law
used when he prayed to the God of Horeb. Moses shook his head to clear his
mind, thinking the smell a daydream. Yet the smell persisted. Slowly, he looked
around. He was startled to see a thorn bush ablaze. Yet the bush itself did not
actually seem to be on fire. There was fire, but the bush was not burning. Was he
daydreaming?
Forgetting the sheep, intrigued and yet wary, he took a couple of
cautious steps towards the fire when a voice came from the fire: "Moses,
Moses!" He stopped abruptly, still not sure of what was happening.
Again, the fire spoke, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from
your feet, for you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your father,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."
Moses was afraid, his body trembling. He held his head in his hands, afraid
he was losing his mind, afraid that this bush really was a god speaking to him.
Again, the fire spoke: "I have seen the misery of my people in
Egypt."
And Moses remembered. He remembered the oppression of the Israelites. He
remembered the cruelty of the overseers. And he remembered his outrage and how
he had killed an overseer who was brutally beating an Israelite slave.
Yet again the fire spoke: "I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my
people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."
And Moses remembered. He remembered how the Israelites had turned on him
in anger. They did not want his leadership or his help. He remembered fleeing
Egypt and finding sanctuary with Jethro. And he remembered Zipporah, his wife,
and the good life they shared.
Was this some strange dream, brought on by heat and exhaustion? Who was
he, a hunted man, despised and rejected by his own people, to lead them out of
bondage to freedom?
"I will be with you. This will be a sign to you: bring the people
to worship me here on this mountain."
That is no sign, Moses thought to himself. How am I to convince the
people to follow me out here into the desert? And what is supposed to happen
when and if we get back to this mountain? Anyway, bushes do not speak. Bushes
burn when ablaze. This was not right. Whose voice was this?
"I am who I am. Tell the Israelites, 'I am has sent me to
you.'"
That was no answer. But Moses even then knew he would go. The fire's
power had reached into his spirit and burned unlike anything he had ever
experienced before. Once he had tried to free the Israelites on his own and
failed; now he would go to Egypt and try again, this time filled with hope and
power from knowing that God went with him.[3]
Moses’ renewed commitment to improve the plight of his enslaved fellow Israelites
prefigured Jesus’ parable of the fig tree. Land for Jewish peasants, as in Hawai'i
today, was precious. People cut down an unproductive tree to use as building material
or firewood. Granting the unproductive fig tree another year, with fertilizer
and care, emphasized that God lovingly and unfailingly offers persons opportunity
after opportunity to become productive, i.e., to grow in love for God and
neighbor.
This Lent, remember, and re-live in your imagination, your failed
attempts to love your neighbor and God. Assured of God’s love and forgiveness,
let go of those failures. Dare to move the seemingly meaningless suffering and
tragedy in life, to pause in those moments when you think God might be speaking.
Dare to try one more time to love God and neighbor. May God use our remembering
to cultivate within us a new awareness of God's abiding presence, that we might
not be barren but that Christ's love and strength might help us to truly love
our neighbor all of our days. AMEN.
Sermon
preached in the Parish of St. Clement, Honolulu, HI
Third
Sunday in Lent, March 24, 2019
[1] Robert
H. Schuller, Turning Hurts into Halos (Nashville: Thomas Nelson
Publishers, 1999), pp. 218-219.
[2] Luke 13:1-9.
[3] Exodus 3:1-15.
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